ACME

ACME (Art. Community. Museum. Education.) is a trifold outreach initiative dedicated to rethinking the public role of museums. ACME Lab, ACME Sessions, and ACME Scholars are designed to transform how the UMFA connects with, engages, and learns from our community.

ACME Lab

Located in the UMFA Emma Eccles Jones Education Center, ACME Lab is an exhibition space for art experimentation and exploration. Visitors of all ages are encouraged to ask questions, make connections across disciplines, and engage with art in new ways. The Lab promotes collaboration between museum and community through active participation—providing an avenue for mutual learning, discovery, and understanding.

This exhibition and ACME Lab is made possible, in part, by a generous gift from The JoAnne L. Shrontz Family Foundation.

ACME Sessions

Transporting the UMFA into the community, ACME Sessions are a series of public meetups where participants can imagine and articulate new models of education and community engagement through hands-on activities and dialogue. Bimonthly Sessions are held at Salt Lake City Public Library branches and bring together Salt Lake City’s most creative, inventive, and cross-disciplinary minds to explore relevant topics and issues within society.

ACME Scholars

The ACME Scholars program, jointly supported by the UMFA and University of Utah Honors College, began in 2016 as an interdisciplinary group of Honors students with a shared interest in art, community engagement, museum studies, and education. ACME Scholars work in conjunction with the ACME Lab and ACME Sessions to develop new ways museums can better serve communities by being more inclusive, accessible, and relevant to diverse audiences.

Click here to learn more about the University of Utah Honors ACME Scholars.